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For those who don't like the graphic style, episodic, controls - good news...

jp-30jp-30
edited October 2009 in Tales of Monkey Island
You should show Bill Tiller's Autumn Moon Entertainment game (Bill is ex-LucasArts / lead artist on The Curse of Monkey Island) some love, with his forthcoming "Ghost Pirates of Vooju Island" adventure game.

I know a few of you will be unaware of its existence.

Screenshots here:

http://www.adventure-treff.de/forum/viewtopic.php?p=322203#p322203

Blog post here:

http://autumnmoonentblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/not-another-pirate-game.html

So, MI Fans have 3 games to rejoice over. Who would have thought? And if the remake or Telltale's aren't exactly what you were hoping for in some form, well now you have a 3rd game to keep in your minds.

I don't know how the MI revival will effect Bill's game, but I hope there's room in the world for 3 Ghost Pirate / Voodoo graphic adventures. I would hope the publicity the MI games are generating has a positive spin-off for Ghost Pirates.

Bill's forum is pretty quiet (hopefully will pick up a bit when Ghost Pirates is showcased at E3), so you may want to register and drop him a note of encouragement...

http://autumnmoon.yuku.com/forums/66/t/Public-Forum.html
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Comments

  • EduardoEduardo
    edited June 2009
    Coming out next year IIRC.

    It is on my "games to keep track of" list.
  • xChri5xxChri5x
    edited June 2009
    Well, at least Ghost Pirates isn't coming out the same time as Tales.
    The more Piratey adventures, the better!
  • GuyMontagueGuyMontague
    edited June 2009
    jp-30 wrote: »
    You should show Bill Tiller's Autumn Moon Entertainment game (Bill is ex-LucasArts / lead artist on The Curse of Monkey Island) some love, with his forthcoming "Ghost Pirates of Vooju Island" adventure game.

    Does this mean they're not going to finish Vampyre Story? Damn!
  • jp-30jp-30
    edited June 2009
    No, A Vampyre Story 2 is scheduled to come out about 6 months after Ghost Pirates. Although Bill's once again looking for a publisher, and that caused many delays for AVS1, so who knows...
  • GuyMontagueGuyMontague
    edited June 2009
    jp-30 wrote: »
    No, A Vampyre Story 2 is scheduled to come out about 6 months after Ghost Pirates. Although Bill's once again looking for a publisher, and that caused many delays for AVS1, so who knows...

    Well, I'm glad to hear it hasn't been abandoned, yet.
  • jp-30jp-30
    edited June 2009
    AG had a big AVS2 preview a couple of days back.

    http://www.adventuregamers.com/article/id,1023

    Seems to be coming along rather nicely.
  • Ry GuyRy Guy Telltale Alumni
    edited June 2009
    man, those backgrounds are so GD nice..
  • xChri5xxChri5x
    edited June 2009
    I want Bill Tiller to paint murals all over my house.
  • taumeltaumel
    edited June 2009
    Looking forward to both ones, actually i mostly enjoyed AVS.

    Some of the AVS2 screens look great. I wish TTG's MI would look this good.
  • EeK85EeK85
    edited June 2009
    I want to make love to Bill Tiller. Wait, did I say that out loud?

    Seriously, this guy is a freaking genius. I love his art style, and CoMI/MI3 is a great game, no matter what some people say about it. Just because Ron wasn't involved, it doesn't mean it's any less good.

    As for A Vampyre Story, I guess Telltale could learn a thing or two in terms of interface from that game and others who have inspired it, like the previously mentioned MI3 and Full Throttle. C'mon, TTG people, the latter's from 1995!
  • RockNRollRockNRoll
    edited June 2009
    omg those screens are exactly, EXACTLY how i would want the new MI to look like. they are just perfect, they retain real detail and darkness and impossible amounts of atmosphere, while still having some zaniness. See, to me, that's just common sense those are so much more beautiful and compelling than big sterile plastic boxes. I just don't understand how a development team wouldn't immediately conceptualize a new Monkey Island game to be more like this style.

    it sounds like such a rip off game, but could it upstage the new MI? i hate to say it, but i have a feeling...

    counter to that, though, I'm not digging vampyre story that much even though it's beautiful. her voice....ugh. it's hard for me to finish, i haven't picked it back up in months. if the walking and pacing and talking was more efficient, i could deal. that's one thing that's so important about the old classics, they're memorable but QUICK. you click, and the character is there in a flash. you don't wait for the gears to start and then have to watch each step. and Tim Schaefer style writing is the best when the lines are brief and to the point. no long winded paragraphs of reading.
  • moomoocowmoomoocow
    edited June 2009
    Sounds good.
    Vampyre Story was good and I expect that one to be even better. And it seems to be a traditional PC adventure and not a lame game feeling like a bad console port.
  • jp-30jp-30
    edited June 2009
    RockNRoll wrote: »
    omg those screens are exactly, EXACTLY how i would want the new MI to look like. they are just perfect, they retain real detail and darkness and impossible amounts of atmosphere, while still having some zaniness. See, to me, that's just common sense those are so much more beautiful and compelling than big sterile plastic boxes. I just don't understand how a development team wouldn't immediately conceptualize a new Monkey Island game to be more like this style.

    Pirates of Vooju Island will probably be released on a DVD-Rom. Telltale games are for download, so there does need to be a reduction in polygons, textures etc to stop the filesize blowing out such that people are put off by the download prospect.

    Just saying, there's reasons why Bill's can look like his, and Telltale's may be a little sparse in places by comparison.
  • JunaidJunaid
    edited June 2009
    Don't know what to think of it. I hope the writing is better than in A Vampyre Story, I'd choose good writing over graphics any day
  • EduardoEduardo
    edited June 2009
    From Bill Tiller's blog
    Ha! My plan worked!!!

    What plan might you be asking? The plan to get Lucas Arts to make more adventure games, especially Monkey Island.

    B*U**LL SH**IT! You might say.

    Well it’s true! Really! You see, like many reading this, I was not all that thrilled when Sam and Max Freelance Police got canceled. It kind of rubbed me the wrong way. Why cancel a perfectly good game that was 70% complete and looking good to boot? I tried to get that game bought by a persons who I later discovered was.. how should I put it…"A bit naïve.” Sorry about that everyone. No good deed goes unpunished. ( I think that saying should go on my grave.)

    Then Jim Ward later said that Lucas Arts wouldn’t do another adventure game till the 2015 or something similar, and the really irked me as it may irked you too. So at that point I was on a mission to prove that adventure games weren’t dead and that if Lucas Arts didn’t make another Monkey Island game then I would!…less the Monkey Island IP of course.

    So I thought about this. Lucas won’t pay anyone to make a monkey island game, and they won’t sell the IP rights neither. What to do, what to do?

    Well then I remembered a conversation I had with Larry Ahern back in 1998 about the idea of doing episodic adventure games...

    More at...
    http://autumnmoonentblog.blogspot.com/2009/06/somi-tomi-and-gpovi.html
  • Secret FawfulSecret Fawful
    edited June 2009
    Eduardo wrote: »
    From Bill Tiller's blog



    More at...
    http://autumnmoonentblog.blogspot.com/2009/06/somi-tomi-and-gpovi.html

    The writing in AVS wasn't bad, it's just that the team really didn't know how to put a great adventure game together. None of the characters were memorable, and there were TOO many jokes. Really the only good part of it was the graphics. I just didn't feel like finishing the game. MI is, and always will be, a game with enough draw power to play it over and over again. Graphics don't make that, the characters and writing does.

    Though graphics and atmosphere have always been a part of Monkey Island, excluding Escape.

    P.S. I loved Mona's voice. I thought it was really cute.
  • LukeSWLukeSW
    edited June 2009
    Secret Fawful wrote: »
    The writing in AVS wasn't bad, it's just that the team really didn't know how to put a great adventure game together. None of the characters were memorable, and there were TOO many jokes. Really the only good part of it was the graphics. I just didn't feel like finishing the game. MI is, and always will be, a game with enough draw power to play it over and over again. Graphics don't make that, the characters and writing does.

    Though graphics and atmosphere have always been a part of Monkey Island, excluding Escape.

    P.S. I loved Mona's voice. I thought it was really cute.

    I agree with all that, but I'd argue that the pacing was off, too. Escaping the castle should have been part of a short-ish tutorial followed by expanded adventures outside. I don't know... The castle section just felt tedious.

    Bill Tiller is undoubtedly a brilliant artist, but it takes more than great art skills to create a quality adventure games and I'm not sure that he - or his team - are well rounded enough yet.
  • doodo!doodo!
    edited June 2009
    First a vamprye story, and now this . Great news in deed. Makes me wonder if anything interesting is happening on the AVS2 forums.
  • jp-30jp-30
    edited June 2009
    You could, I dunno, go have a look?
  • doodo!doodo!
    edited June 2009
    jp-30 wrote: »
    You could, I dunno, go have a look?

    One look would not be enough, I would have to keep my eyes open to see and to be look repeatively as my eyes scanned the page top to bottom......I am not that interested really though, been there in the past and it was soooo rather dead for an undead forum. Oh and you attitude seems to talk smack, I'd watch that thing before it knocks you out .:p
  • LuigiHannLuigiHann
    edited June 2009
    I have to say, one of my secondary thoughts on the announcement of TMI (after the initial "OMG!!!!" thoughts) was "Oh, poor Bill Tiller." Glad to see he's taking it well, and actually the schedule should work out pretty well for him, since GPoVI should be coming out just a short while after the last episode of TMI, so they won't be in direct competition, but people will still have piratey adventures on their minds.
  • IrishmileIrishmile
    edited June 2009
    All these great games.... I could cry
  • IrishmileIrishmile
    edited June 2009
    http://www.adventuregamers.com/images/db/10187.jpg
    http://www.adventuregamers.com/images/db/10186.jpg
    http://www.adventuregamers.com/images/db/10191.jpg
    http://www.adventuregamers.com/images/db/10190.jpg
    http://www.adventuregamers.com/images/db/10189.jpg
    http://www.adventuregamers.com/images/db/10188.jpg
    http://www.adventuregamers.com/images/db/10185.jpg
    http://www.adventuregamers.com/images/db/10184.jpg
    http://www.adventuregamers.com/images/db/10183.jpg
  • Threepwood4LifeThreepwood4Life
    edited June 2009
    Vooju Island just looks great, can't wait for this one too.
  • GozzoManGozzoMan
    edited June 2009
    :eek:
  • EduardoEduardo
    edited June 2009
    Wouldn't the Adventure Gamer site prefer a link to their gallery instead of hotlinking every pic in it?
  • IrishmileIrishmile
    edited June 2009
    Go for it
  • taumeltaumel
    edited June 2009
    Beside of the Voodoo Priest Ghost i'm no so much into the models but some of the backgrounds look great and moody. The house, the harbour and hey especially the stone room which is lit like in The DIG. ;O)

    Dunno you can tell me a 100 times how great all the benefits of 3D are (and yeah i do understand them) but with such backgrounds i'm already more than pleased.

    Definatly looking forward to it. Hopefully he'll get a publisher for AVS2 as well.

    One thing i was thinking about whilst watching the screens. I always liked that you got rewarded with a new scene, and so looking at some new nice gfx, after solving a few puzzles. Up to now i felt this rewarding relationship more in the older adventures because a great painted pictures somehow draws a deeper connection to me than a not so great 3d scene. Not that this couldn't be done in pure 3d adventures as well but so far i felt this more in the older games.

    On the other side i could imagine a game like The DIG II taking advantage of 3d a lot for really great scenes. Oh man, if only...*dreaming*
  • EduardoEduardo
    edited June 2009
    Grabbed from mixnmojo.com

    Official site:
    http://www.ghostpirates-game.de/

    Art Gallery:
    http://www.gamershell.com/pc/ghost_pirates_of_vooju_island/screenshots.html?id=407522
  • LuigiHannLuigiHann
    edited June 2009
    Eduardo wrote: »
    Wouldn't the Adventure Gamer site prefer a link to their gallery instead of hotlinking every pic in it?
    Irishmile wrote: »
    Go for it

    Could you please edit your post so that we don't have giant, frame-breaking images in the thread?

    Anyway.

    Looks like I was right, that one pirate from the initial teaser image does seem to have a huge, Homestar-style underbite: http://www.gamershell.com/pc/ghost_pirates_of_vooju_island/screenshots.html?id=407518
  • Ash735Ash735
    edited June 2009
    I have to say, the Art style this game uses is just great, Tiller still has it, that House picture is soo Blood Island-esque it makes me want to dive into the picture! Sadly I got A Vampyre Story but just never had an urge to finish it for some reason.
  • LeakLeak
    edited June 2009
    LuigiHann wrote: »
    Could you please edit your post so that we don't have giant, frame-breaking images in the thread?
    I don't see the problem - yeah, it's long, but at least on this forum it doesn't mean that all posts on the same page get to be a mile wide with broken line wrapping, but only his post...
  • IrishmileIrishmile
    edited June 2009
    I changed it... I didnt see any problem with it.. but... maybe he is posting from a dial up windows 3.0 connection.
  • MardukMarduk
    edited June 2009
    Who doesn't like the episodic thing?
  • IrishmileIrishmile
    edited June 2009
    I prefer full games... but I do not hate episodes.
  • MusicallyInspiredMusicallyInspired
    edited June 2009
    I'm ok with the episode excursions for now. Hopefully someday we'll get some good full-length games again, though.
  • TookiGuyTookiGuy
    edited June 2009
    Wow. First I was like - Meh. Rip-off.
    Then I read "Bill Tiller" - Hmmm...
    Then I went through all the screenies - WANT.

    Not really a replacement for MI, but still, I really like the art style.
    Quite dark. In my opinion, that is kind of what MI should be, but of course, Monkey Island is Monkey Island.
  • FuryFury
    edited June 2009
    Looks freaking awesome.
  • FuryFury
    edited June 2009
    Episodes seem to me a better way to approach adventure games. You don't have all that crap in your inventory throughout the whole game, like in MI2.

    The graphics in Voojoo look simply amazing, but you have to remember that there is more than graphics to monkey island. Curse was the best monkey island, but apart from amazing visuals (still to this day) it had really clever writing, great voice actors and some of the most memorable music EVER.

    I read a review of a vampyre story, and it said that the humour wasn't great and the voice actors were godawful. That said, I'm still gonna go and buy it after my exams are over, just for the graphics and gameplay.

    Voojoo looks good, but I am personally looking forward to Tales of Monkey Island more, just because it has the humour, voice actors (well, the good one at least) and most importantly the same music from Mi3.
  • KradathKradath
    edited June 2009
    In general it looks great but the background looks a bit blurry though, like if the resolution of the texture is a bit low.
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